THE NEW GIRL’S NAME WAS KAREN. She was chubby and aggressive but she had a certain laugh and a mind quite a lot sharper than Charles’s, and he was very interested in her, although he did not want to be seen with her in public places because she was chubby and because she was a friend of Margot’s. After the first time she came up she had suggested that they live together. She had already been quite nice to Charles and, with the suggestion of cohabitation, promised to be even nicer. This suggestion had frightened Charles at first because he did not know how to accept anyone beyond Margot in his bed in the morning. None of the other girls had ever stayed over because Margot had a key and sometimes stopped at his apartment for coffee on her way to work; and he tried to be cautious enough to remove all evidence of the previous night’s visitor and to always wake up alone, just in case Margot came in before he left for work or after he had gone. But the thought of having someone permanent, albeit chubby, in his bed in the morning without matrimonial ties or the threat of them was a new one for Charles, one that merited some consideration.

“Think about it,” said Karen. “Just don’t think too long. I can always go someplace else.”

“I’m thinking about it now,” he told her.

Karen leaned closer to him on the sofa. “Of course you could have other girls just like I would see other fellows. But neither of us should have any regulars.”

“Why do you want to move in?” Charles asked.

“I like you,” she said. “I like men who know what they’re doing. There’re too many boys around. You can’t grow with them.”

“But you don’t want to marry me?” said Charles. He was thinking very fast, almost faster than his capacity to think.

She looked him full in the face and then went all sad around the mouth. “Not now,” she said. “You know how bad the times are. My parents might bitch about it. They aren’t bad people, but they honestly aren’t ready for it yet. I really want to do it. I really might do it someday, but just think about the times and all the trouble I’d be inviting.”

“It was just a thought,” said Charles.

The girl was relieved. She put her hand on his knee and looked directly into his eyes with some sad indications of passion in her own. “One day it’ll all be different,” she said. She patted his knee, reassuringly.

“Yeah,” said Charles. “It was just a thought.”

“But we could still live together.”

“Yeah,” Charles said. “We could still do that.”

“And no regulars for me and no regulars for you.”